Wed. May 18: Minot, ND

Minot is a nice little town, but it's hella messed-up too. While waiting for the venue to open, we experienced not only one (1) insane music store owner who dragged me into his basement to listen to his cover band's horrendous recording of "Plush" by Stone Temple Pilots, but also one (1) random drunk at 5 PM woman who staggered up to us and opened the conversation with "Now, I KNOW one of you has a driver's license." I'm still not entirely sure what she wanted us to do for her.

But back to that music store guy. We decide to kill time and wander into a music store, and immediately see the mistake we've made when we spot the plastic see-thru green BC Rich guitar on the wall. The store owner, an old dude with stringy long blond hair and a bald spot, starts talking gear with us, as we are obviously a band, and band dudes obviously are gear snobs, right? YEAH, RIGHT. "Who's the drummer?" He asks. I foolishly raise my hand. "Come on downstairs, I wanna show you my drum kits. I've got 8 of 'em." Uh, ok...

Like a moron, I follow him downstairs while his wife, a total mail-order bride if ever we've seen one, emerges to watch things upstairs. Apparently there's a chance one of us might steal the grunge pedal he has listed at $80. He starts showing me drum sets that are kinda ok, but really nothing special. "Yeah, this one cost me about $8000; it's a good little kit. Here, Gibralter's putting this one together for me. You ever play with two bass drums? This one's costing me $12,000." "Um, wow. I bought my kit used for $250 from a friend."

He starts picking up random drums on the ground. "Here, this is a 12-inch rack. It's got a nice sound." Then he hits it and it responds with lots of resounding "bzzzzzzzz" noise. Yup, a real winner there. At one point, the guy starts playing a drum solo or something on one of his kits, ostensibly to show me how great the kit sounds. But he goes on for minutes and minutes while I stand there awkwardly and start looking at the other drums so I don't make "I hate you, you fucking psycho" glances in his direction.

"You guys record your own stuff? I have my recording studio right here. Wanna hear some of my band's stuff?" OK, I can't resist this. He plays me the aforementioned "Plush" and then follows that up with some modern rock crap that is apparently on the radio right now. Dude is so amazed that I don't know the song that he begins air guitaring and SINGING ALONG WITH THE RECORDING WHILE STARING AT ME TWO FEET FROM MY FACE, as if that will jar my memory. Sorry, Hulkster, no dice.

Meanwhile, Yale runs out the door upstairs after hearing the recording of "Plush" blast from the basement. Realizing that he needs to save me, he dials my number on his cell phone, and I explain to Balding Rocker Dude that I have to leave because we need to get to the show. "What kind of sticks do you use?" is his reply. Jesus Christ.

I make my way back upstairs and flash the band my best "Jesus Fuck I want to KILL" look, in plain view of Natalya from Uzbekistan or whatever the fuck. I say "well, nice talking to you, but it's time to leave," and walk out the door, and he follows us down the street to get a cigarette and keep talking with us! Thankfully, he stops as we round the corner, and we are FREE. We head to the show and proceed to grill the kids at the venue about what drugs they are aware this man has taken, if any.

And by the way, the show was sloppy but great, kids loved us, the AMP in Minot kicks loads of ass, and everyone should try to play there on their way out or back from the west. We sold at least $100 in merch before we even got paid out of the door! How much does that rule? That's like one grunge pedal at Anorexic Hulk Hogan's Rock-n-Wrestling Music Emporium!

OH YEAH! And after the show there was a huge party where we played Starship's "We Built This City" on vinyl and Reno got flashed or something. ALWAYS CARRY THE VIDEO CAMERA WHEN DRUNK GIRLS ARE PRESENT. Thank you.